The Thief Who Knocked on Sorrow's Gate

CHAPTER ONE    

On Halfa’s Night, one of the rowdiest of Lucernis’ festival nights, someone sent me Borold’s head in a cedar box.

I was home alone, savoring a nice Gol-Shen red and rereading Dubbuck’s epic and amusing Iron Witch, when someone came knocking at the door. At first, I ignored it, thinking it was a group of drunken revelers come to serenade the big houses on the Promenade in hopes of festival largess. Then, whoever it was found the bell-pull and started pulling. And pulling. And pulling.

I sighed and went to answer the door, cursing all drunkards and wondering, not for the first time, whether it really wouldn’t be best if Holgren and I hired some sort of live-in servant. I was the one who had wanted the big house on the Promenade. I’d never considered how much effort it would take to keep even a small manse in something approaching a decent state. It was built to be run by a staff, and there was just Holgren and me knocking about the place. Sometimes, I felt like a squatter in my own house. Usually, it was when the neighbors stared at me with disdain.

Holgren couldn’t have cared less one way or the other, but I had a sort of bone-bred repulsion toward the idea of a maid or serving man. I suppose I’d seen my mother scrub too many floors she wouldn’t otherwise have been allowed to walk on, wash and mend and embroider too much in the way of clothing she would never be able to afford to wear. And I’d seen my father drink away what little she made, which brought my thoughts back to the drunk fools outside. I had the sudden, strong urge to cut the bell pull and wrap it around somebody’s throat.

But when I opened the door, it wasn’t a group of wine-sotted minstrels. It was a sailor, a merchantman by his scruffy port jacket and ragged canvas pants. Under one arm, he held a wooden box.

“Ye’r Amra Thetys, then?” he said with a distinct Bellarian accent.

“What do you want?”

“I’m here to give you this, then, amn’t I?” He held the box out to me. “If ye’r Amra Thetys.”

“What is it? Who sent it?”

“As to what it is, it’s a box, innit? I don’t know the tall chappy’s name what give me the box neither. He only said give it to Amra Thetys, who lived down by the Dragon Gate. And even with that, I had a time finding you.”

“What did he look like?”

“Not really sure, mistress. He were all wrapped up in a night-black cloak, an’ I might’ve had overmuch to drink.”

“And you’ve come from Bellarius?”

“I come from all ‘round the Dragonsea, mistress, if you take my meaning, but that’s where I was given this to give to you. Are you goin’ to take it, then?” He glanced over his shoulder at the lamp-lit, boisterous crowd staggering up and down the Promenade, clearly itching to spend his leave out there on the street rather than at my door. I couldn’t really blame him. The wine and the ale flowed freely, and the revelers, both men and women, seemed to have abandoned anything approaching morals or common sense. Many had also abandoned important parts of their attire, though everyone I could see still had on a mask of one sort or another.

“Fine,” I said, more to myself than to him. I wasn’t born naturally suspicious, but I picked up the trait fairly early. I took the box gingerly, surprised at the weight of it, and set it down on a dusty table there in the entry hall. When I turned back to close the door, the sailor was still there, hand half-out. I dug a silver mark out of a pocket and put it in his grimy palm. He looked like he was going to ask for more, but I closed the door in his face. Maybe if he hadn’t been so energetic with the bell.

I took my time with the box, checking for nasty surprises. There was nothing obvious. Just a well-put-together box, about two hand-spans square. The only way to be truly sure it was safe was to have somebody else open it with me in another room, but what can I say? The list of people I would use that way had grown remarkably short. Eventually, I shrugged to myself and pried open the lid with a knife, holding my breath. The breath-holding part turned out to be a good idea.

The first thing I saw was a loop of brown hair, braided and tied off just like it was meant for a handle. What it was a handle to was down in gray oakum fibers, the stuff that’s left over when you pick apart ships’ ropes once they’d outlived their usefulness. I briefly considered slapping the lid back on and just living with the curiosity, but even as I was thinking it, I put three fingers into the loop and lifted.

The reek of Borold’s decaying flesh invaded the room. There was no note, only Borold’s noggin, open eyes gone squishy and his heavy, vaguely pig-like face slack and greenish-gray. I recognized him almost immediately despite the decay and the intervening years.

I gagged a little. I’m not exactly squeamish. I’ve seen and done some foul things, but you get a rotting head sent to you and see how you handle it.

After I got my stomach under control, I took a good look at my grisly package. The cut itself was amazingly clean, as if Borold’s head had been severed with one blow. While this was certainly possible, it was by no means an easy thing to accomplish. Unfortunately, I’d had first-hand experience at decapitation—but that’s another story. Such a cut spoke of either an experienced headsman or a wicked-sharp blade. Perhaps both.

There was a brand on his forehead. It had been done, it looked like, while he was still alive. Or at least while he was still fresh. Not that I’m an expert on such things. I’d seen the brand somewhere, something much like it at any rate. It was the Hardish rune for “traitor.” Well, almost. Something like a downward-pointing dagger with three successive cross guards, or quillons, of equal length. Except the middle quillon was missing from the brand. I set the head back on top of the now-loose oakum fibers it had been packed in and backed away into the next room to get a clean breath.

Who had sent it? Who had done the deed? Probably, but not certainly, the same person. Someone who knew that I knew Borold, who had cause to believe I would care whether his head had parted ways with the rest of him. Did I? Not particularly. Not anymore.

And who was Borold? In years past, he had been a wharf-rat in Bellarius, a tough, and a bully. An altogether unpleasant boy who, I was sure, hadn’t grown any more likeable with age. He’d hurt me once. Badly. I’d been one of the few gutter children he couldn’t cow into giving him “tribute”—scraps of scrounged food or pilfered coin. I suppose I set a bad example, so one afternoon, he’d sneaked up behind me as I sat on the sea wall, watching the waves crash against the rocks, and damn near knocked my head in with a paving stone.

I had reason to wish Borold dead, but fifteen years or thereabouts had dulled the edge on that particular desire.

Someone else, it seemed, had decided that late was better than never. And I had a fair idea who it might be.

Damn.

I took a few deep breaths and went back to Borold. I don’t know exactly what I was looking for. Something, anything else to tell me my suspicions were wrong. Or right for that matter.

There was just the head, the cut, the brand, the box. And the oakum, old rope fiber used mainly for caulking boats. Maybe there was something in that, maybe not. It was common enough stuff though not generally used for packing.

The brand drew my eye again. If there was a message in all of this, that was it. I just wasn’t sure I knew the language. If it meant Borold was a traitor, well, that wouldn’t have surprised me. But who goes to the trouble of making a brand and gets it wrong? It could be some noble’s chop, I supposed, or some warlord’s, as unlikely as that was in Bellarius. More likely it was the symbol of one of the crews, the street gangs in Bellarius that made up the bulk of the shadow guild there. I just didn’t know. It didn’t even occur to me that it might be some magical symbol until I traced a fingernail over where that missing middle stroke of the rune would have been if it were indeed “traitor.”

Borold started screaming then, a shrill, tortured scream that didn’t stop, never had to draw breath from lungs no longer attached. It was a scream that spoke wordless volumes about agony and mindless terror. I should know. I’ve heard the like.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up; whether from the magic or the shock, I couldn’t say. I pushed Borold’s face into the oakum so that it would dampen the sound somewhat and slammed the lid back on, hastily hammering nails back in with a knife pommel. I could still hear him. Kerf’s beard, the neighbors could probably still hear him, and I no longer lived in the Foreigner’s Quarter, where screams of pain were most often met with shouted curses to shut the hells up.

I dumped out one of Holgren’s countless chests, put the box in it, and padded it all around with blankets and pillows from around the house. Then, I went looking for a shovel.

~ ~ ~

Holgren dragged himself in from the workshop about an hour before dawn, smelling of chemicals and singed wool. He found me in the bedroom. I’d already packed and made all the preparations necessary for my trip. Money can make things happen, whatever the hour. It just takes more money on Halfa’s Night.

He took one look at me, at my bags, opened his mouth, closed it again. A twinkle sprang up in his smoke-reddened eyes. “There’s a hack waiting outside. Was it something I said?”

“I should give you hells about spending all your time down there at that madhouse of yours,” I replied. It didn’t actually bother me. He’d given up magic, the Art, after being forced to use it on me—painfully. If experimenting and inventing one silly thing after another made him happy and kept him occupied, who was I to complain? I had my own interests to keep me amused.

He came over and put his arms around me. I leaned into him briefly, but the fumes coming off him made my eyes water. I gave him a quick kiss and pushed him away.

“I have to go to Bellarius. An old friend may be in trouble. It might be nothing, but I have to make sure.”

“I’ll throw a few things in a bag—”

“No. Just me. My ship leaves in two hours with the tide. I was going to stop by the workshop if you hadn’t arrived in time.”

“But I’ve always wanted to see Bellarius.”

“Nobody wants to see Bellarius, Holgren. It’s a pit. And it’s best if I go alone. There are people I’ll have to deal with who won’t say mum if you’re with me. You’d wind up sitting on your hands in some inn or public room when you could be here, trying to blow up half the city.”

“Unfair. We haven’t had a fire in months.”

I pointed to the charred hole in his shirt. He glanced down at it. “Not a large fire, in any case.”

“I’ll be back in a month, hopefully less. Assuming this is all just me worrying for nothing.”

“When you worry, it’s never for nothing.” Holgren stripped off the shirt and sat down on the edge of the bed, his chest pale and lean. “What’s this all about then? Who’s this friend who’s in trouble?”

“He may not be in trouble at all. But I received a disturbing message tonight.” Which was now buried in the back garden. I could have told Holgren about it, could have used his magical expertise, I supposed. But he’d left magic behind, and had a good and sufficient distaste for his former profession. I respected that. “I’m just going to check things out is all. I owe Theiner that much.”

“A childhood friend, then.” Holgren knew something of my childhood. Enough to know it wasn’t dolls and skip-rope.

“Yes. Now, come here and give me a kiss. I’ve got to go.”

He got up, but instead of kissing me, he went to one of the many chests that lined the walls. An inveterate pack rat, was my Holgren. So long as nothing exploded, it didn’t bother me. He’d been doing lots of experiments with gunpowder. Enough that I’d made him promise to keep the stuff out of the house.

He rummaged around for a few moments then came to me holding a black velvet bag and a smallish wooden case.

“Traveling gifts,” he said and smiled. He handed the box to me and took a silver necklace with a bloodstone pendant out of the bag.

“No thanks, lover.” I’d had a bad experience with a certain necklace not so long ago in the Silent Lands. I wasn’t fond of jewelry in general anymore.

“Wear it for me, Amra. If it leaves your skin for more than a day, I will know. And I will come.”

“Dabbling in magic again?”

“It still has its uses. Someday, it will fail utterly, but until then, I will use it if it can help keep you safe.”

I was touched. Holgren hadn’t wanted to be a mage even when he was a practicing one despite his formidable power. “What’s in the box? More mystical artifacts?”

“Oh, no. Something I take much more pride in.”

“Guns?” I knew he’d been working on some smaller version of an arquebus. And he knew my low opinion of firearms.

He shook his head. “Open it.”

Inside was a brace of throwing knives, ivory-handled, single-edged, elegantly simple. I picked one up. It was perfectly weighted for my hand.

“I was saving them for a special occasion. You’ll find they hold an edge quite well.”

“You made these? They’re beautiful.”

“Helped make them. I owe you a few knives, no?”

“All right. Thank you. I’m certain I won’t need them or the necklace, but thank you.”

“I don’t like seeing you in danger,” he said, face tightening briefly.

We were a pair. Even after a year together, we both found it hard to share our emotions. But then, after the things we’d been through, most times, that wasn’t necessary.

“I’ve got to go.” I slipped the necklace on, feeling it warm to my skin almost instantly, and put the knife case into a graceful old sabretache I’d lifted from an annoying cavalry officer. The fashionable idiot had worn it low enough that it had slapped his knee. I wore it higher up, against my thigh, like the non-idiot I was. The knife case didn’t leave much room for anything else.

I’d have to have sheaths made for them once I’d reached Bellarius; they wouldn’t fit in my current rig. I stripped it off and hung it on a hook. Over the last year, I’d decided to limit myself to two knives on my person at any one time in an effort to better play the respectable woman of business role. It wasn’t easy. I felt, if not naked, at least under-dressed.

It was time to go, or I’d have to wait another day at a minimum for the next outbound berth.

“Come back soon,” he said. “You know how I fret.”

I kissed him, letting my mouth say in one way what it had trouble saying in another. It occurred to me, as his hands tangled themselves in my hair, that a month was really rather a long time to be apart. I let my hands run down his bare, pale chest. Lean, but muscled, and scarless since being regenerated by Tha-Agoth’s blood. My own body was nearly as unblemished save for the stain that Abanon’s Blade had left on my palm and the scars on my face that were far older and apparently beyond the power of a demigod to erase.

“A month,” I said, grabbing his waist. “That really is quite a long time.”

Judging from his reaction, it seemed the same thought had occurred to him.

An hour later, the hack I’d hired was making unusual speed down to the docks. I wondered as the cobbled streets jounced me around inside the carriage if I’d miss my boat. Just at that moment, I didn’t really care.